I’m talking about natural gas not gasoline. My local gas company has raised their customer charge from about $14 a month to $25 a month. This means that I have a $25 gas bill before I use any gas at all. This resulted in my current bill being $5 higher than the previous month even though I hadn’t used any heat and used less gas in this billing period. It appears that my gas bill will be $40 a month just for hot water and cooking.
That seems like an excessively high bill to me so I decided to fix it by canceling my gas service. Cooking won’t be a problem since I don’t do much cooking anyway. What cooking I do can be done with the microwave or George Foreman grill.
Hot water will be a little more difficult to do without. With the hot summer days a cool shower might be nice from time to time. I’m not big on cold showers though and I’m going to want a warm shower at least. This can be solved by showering at the gym. This will also force me to go to the gym more often which will hopefully result in my working out more. I’ve also considered getting a solar shower and using that.
So far I haven’t had to use any of these solutions. Although my gas was supposed to be turned off last Tuesday and I’ve already received my final bill I still have gas. I’m not sure if there is a delay in turning it off or what. I guess I’ll find out eventually when I either receive a bill or the gas is actually turned off.
Looks like you are still a customer and there is another $25 bill in your future. I would find a supervisor at the gas company and inform them that you have asked to have service cut and do not intend on paying another bill. You may have to escalate up the chain, but I would get really pushy about this one.
Wow Tight Fisted. That’s extreme but, very clever. I would love to be able to do that. Love your blog and your ideas.
D.C.